Uranium symptoms match US report as cancer fears spread

Inhaling depleted uranium particles causes acute symptoms identical to those claimed by sick servicemen from the Balkan and Gulf conflicts, according to a US government toxicology report.

The 1998 report by the US Agency for Toxic Substances describes symptoms which include fatigue, shortness of breath, lymphatic problems, bronchial complaints, weight loss, bleeding and unsteady gait.

Italy is investigating the suspicious leukaemia deaths of six of its peacekeepers from Kosovo, where the weapons were heavily used by US pilots. Cases of cancer have also been reported among Belgian, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers. Governments across Europe have rushed to test their peacekeepers, with Turkey the first country to announce it had detected contamination in two of its soldiers.

Britain - one of the last European governments to offer screening last week - continues to deny any significant health risk. Veterans have accused the Ministry of Defence of a cover-up.

The American report will put further pressure on the MoD to announce a moratorium on the use, manufacture and testing of DU ammunition. It follows the disclosure that the US Navy has already phased out DU weapons for its Phalanx anti-missile gun on safety grounds, forcing the Royal Navy to announce on Friday that it was following suit.

A MoD spokesman said yesterday: 'The US manufacturers have decided not to manufacture depleted uranium rounds any more. They are moving to alternatives. We have no choice but to do the same. All current and proposed future buys of Phalanx ammunition will be of the tungsten variety.'

The Navy's move came as newspapers published a leaked Pentagon document from 1993 which warned: 'When soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust they incur a potential increase in cancer risk... that increase can be quantified in terms of projected days of life lost.'

Another warning in the early Nineties came from an official at AEA Technology, the trading name of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, in a document looking at what might happen if all the DU fired in the Gulf War by tanks - about 8 per cent of the total DU used there - were inhaled. If that happened, it said, there could be half a million deaths as a result by 2000.

Experts in DU poisoning claim that some Iraqi crewmen in tanks hit by DU weapons died not from uranium shrapnel but from acute depleted uranium poisoning on the spot.

The New York Times revealed last week that the Pentagon had urged all Allied forces in Kosovo to take special precautions when approaching the remains of DU ammunition. The document - called 'hazard awareness' - was issued by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and recommended health screening for some personnel.

Last week brought claims by three prison officers from HMP Featherstone, near Wolverhampton, that they had tested for raised levels of uranium following two fires in the last four years at the adjoining Royal Ordnance factory that produces the shells.